A lens driving device comprising an electromagnetic driving unit having a coil and a magnet is known. Such a lens driving device includes an autofocus lens driving unit that drives a lens frame along an optical axis and an image stabilizing lens driving unit that drives the lens frame in directions intersecting the optical axis. Camera described in, for example, Japanese Patent 2011-65140 includes a driving device for auto focus and a driving device for image stabilization.
This lens driving device comprises a position detection sensor that detects the position of a driven lens frame. Therefore this lens driving device can perform a feedback control of driving of the lens frame based on an output from the position detection sensor. The position detection sensor includes a hall sensor etc., the hall sensor moves together with the lens frame and detects magnetic field of a magnet which is a part of the driving unit.
In a conventional lens driving device comprising a position detecting sensor, the position detection sensor is mounted on a flexible substrate, and terminals of the flexible substrate are connected to the terminal on the support member. However, such connection through the intermediary of a flexible substrate tends to incur summing of a positional deviation caused when mounting the position detection sensor on the flexible substrate and a positional deviation caused when connecting the flexible substrate to the terminals on the support member. Therefore, mounting the position detection sensor with high positional accuracy requires a high level of skill and a careful work. Also, as the flexible substrate need to be manufactured with high dimensional accuracy, there was a problem that the manufacturing cost is raised.
Also, the distance between the detection object (magnet etc.) and the position detection sensor tends to vary due to the presence of the intermediate flexible substrate. Therefore, for achieving a high level of detection accuracy through highly accurate control of the distance, a high level of production control is necessary. In addition, since the thickness of the flexible substrate and thickness of the position sensor are summed on the support member, the distance from the surface of the support member to the lens frame has to be increased to some extent. Therefore, a problem remains unsolved that hampers reduction in the size and/or thickness of the lens driving device.
The present invention addresses, for example, such a problem. Further, the present invention has the following aspects: that the position detection sensors for feedback control of driving of lens frame can easily be mounted at low cost and high positional accuracy; that high position detection accuracy can be accomplished without requiring a high level production control; and that a reduction in the size and/or thickness of the lens driving device can be accomplished by decreasing the distance between the support member and the lens frame as much as possible.